Brilliant Noise

December 1, 2018 - December 30, 2018

Brilliant Noise takes us into the data vaults of solar astronomy. After sifting through hundreds of thousands of computer files made accessible via open access archives, Semiconductor has brought together some of the sun’s finest unseen moments. These images, kept in their most raw form, reveal the energetic particles and solar wind as a rain of white noise. NASA, usually hiding the processes and mechanics in action behind the capturing procedure, routinely cleans up the black-and-white grainy quality of footage. Satellites orbiting the Earth have collected most of the imagery as single frames, or files of information, that are then reorganized into spectral sequences. The soundtrack brings to light the hidden forces at play upon the solar surface, by directly translating the intensity of the brightness into audio manipulation.